The day that Governor Gustavo Melella planned to announce the date for the Constituent Conventional elections, for the Partial Reform of the Constitution of Tierra del Fuego and thus obtain authorization for a possible third term, Ushuaia, the capital of the province from Tierra del Fuego; It suffered a total collapse for more than 16 hours, due to a general power outage.
The cut was not the product of sabotage of Melella's re-election aspirations , but rather caused by the systemic disinvestment in the city's energy park by the Provincial Energy Directorate - the state entity responsible for the electrical service; whose professionals and workers have been warning for no less than 20 years of the situation of vulnerability that the sector is experiencing.
“The longest outage (more than 16 hours without light) and most general in the last 40 years,” said engineer Sergio Reymundo , on his Facebook account; former director of the entity and one of the professionals with the greatest knowledge of the city's electrical park.
The total suspension of the service that began around 6 in the morning on Friday and continued until after 10:00 p.m., generated disastrous consequences, both for the resident population, for banking, administrative, commercial, health, hotel, gastronomic and tourist, among others. Even more so, when the city in particular and the province in general is experiencing the harshest winter in the last 10 years.
With the immediate suspension of the internet service, the heating systems in the main residential neighborhoods, buildings and hotels also stopped working. The same as all their elevators. Several sectors of the city were left without water, as a result of which the pumping and storage system of the cisterns was stopped, and with it the obstruction of home pipes due to freezing.
The Ushuaia regional hospital, clinics, sanatoriums and health centers concentrated their activity on wards and emergencies. The status of electrodependent patients is not yet known.
Except for large supermarkets that have their own generators, during that entire period, more than 97% of bars, cafes, restaurants, butcher shops, warehouses, ice cream parlors, kiosks and minimarkets were deprived of work. Even more so, with the loss of the cold chain of much of the stored products.
In two statements the government reported that the “general service outage” was “the product of a malfunction in the cell sector of the Electric Generation Park.”
Be that as it may, the general electricity outage as a result of the prolonged disinvestment; It adds one more element and weight to the open debate of a society that rejects 70% of the constitutional reform, the cost of which according to the opposition; will far exceed 1000 million pesos.
